Guide to The Basics
Type 'help rules', don't do anything to break these. The staff try to make it as fun as possible and having to enforce them and punish people is no fun for anyone. Don't multiplay! The only time you can have 2 characters in the game, is in the same inn - to transfer equipment for example. Don't just lose link or use the quit command! This is important, as there is a chance that you may die and lose all your equipment! If you lose link, your character will remain in the game for 15 minutes until it 'voids' and you are vulerable to any attacks from mobs during this time. Find an inn! (towns) is a brief description of the location of every town's inn. You can safely rent at no cost at the inn by typing 'rent'. DISPLAY Type 'toggle roomsize' and then 'look room' to see the room you are in. There is a room name, a room description, the room exits (a # behind a direction means it's a closed door) and possibly one or more mobs or other players there. You will also see a line displaying something like this: < 31h/37H 105v/105V > This is called the prompt. You can change it, but for now this will be good enough. It shows your current hitpoints (h), maximum hitpoints (H), current (v) and maximum (V) movement points. If you fight a mob and it hits you, your current hitpoints will go down. When you gain a level, your maximum hitpoints will rise. There are 50 levels. MOVEMENT To move, type east, west, north, south, up or down, depending on the room exits. Room exits with a # behind them are closed doors. If you walk into one, it will say 'the is closed'. Type 'open ' to open it. can be door, doors, iron, wooden, huge, etc, and there is no way to tell until you try to go that direction. The is optional, but is needed if there are 2 doors with the same keyword in the room. Some rooms, shown with a (water) flag after the room name, you can only enter if you have a canoe or similar item in your inventory. Likewise, for some other rooms, shown with a (no-ground) flag, you need a fly spell or item which grants fly. If you get the message "Naah.. You are too relaxed for that", type 'alert'. This means you have been resting for a bit and you need to tense up before you can move on. To get onto a ship or ferry, type 'enter '. To get off, type 'disembark'. Note that for some ships you need to buy a ticket first! ITEM MANIPULATION To get something on the floor, type 'get '. To try to wear it, type 'wear ', 'hold ' or 'wield ', depending on what kind of item it is. Type 'remove ' to remove something. 'Drop ' will drop something. Don't drop your newbie equipment! It will disappear! To get an item from a container, type 'get '. Put it back in with 'put '. Type 'equipment' to see what you are wearing. You can also just type 'eq'. Most commands can be abbreviated. What you are wearing will be basic now, but take a look at other players to see what the possible slots (places you can wear eq at) are. As you gain levels, you might find more eq, buy it, or be given some by other players. Other good places to check out what people have are the sales board west and south of the Waterdeep fountain or the Auction Hall in Baldur's Gate. Sometimes you may find or buy a scroll. Scrolls contain spells and can be used by all classes. To use a scroll, have it in your inventory and type 'recite '. If the spell requires a target, you will need to use 'recite ', for example an identify scroll works on an item, while combat spell scrolls require a mob as target. OTHER PEOPLE Type 'who' to see who is in the game. The list shows their level, their name, their class and their race. Some people may choose to not be seen. They are 'anonymous'. However, if you know their name, you can type 'who ' and you will see them anyway. Invisible players are not seen either without the detect invisibility spell, and if you are an ultravision race (drow, duergar, illithid) you will not see players who are out in the daylight. Walk around town, try to get a feel for the place. Don't leave it yet - just look around. To group with someone, type 'follow '. You will then be following them. He/she has to type 'group ' and you two will be grouped! Type 'group' to see the group information. To communicate with the group, use 'gsay '. Another way for someone to group you, is if you type 'consent '. They can now group you as well, but you will not follow them. Useful if they are not in the same room as you are. A group can be maximum 15 players. Group with others! You will find that you have a lot more fun and that you can do things you couldn't do alone. Getting experience will go faster, and you can't kill many mobs with eq alone. Send tells to anyone around your level on the same race side (type 'who good/evil 10-20 sort' for example, showing all goodies or evils between level 10 and 20) and ask them to group with you. Casters need warriors, and warriors need casters. Even if you have a good group going already and don't 'need' anyone else, consider letting someone who asks join. It's for the better of the mud eventually, and being refused and having nothing to do alone sucks! COMMUNICATION To communicate, type 'say '. Everyone in the room with you will see this. To talk to someone in particular, use 'tell '. This will send your text to player . To talk to mobs, use 'ask '. To let everyone see what you want to say, type 'shout '. Everyone in the zone will see it. Note: shouting repeatedly is generally frowned upon, and the admins may remove your shouting privileges for a while if you abuse it. People generally shout when they are trying to sell some equipment, or looking for a group. If you are stuck, type something like 'nhc hello, I'm having a problem with XXX, what should I do?'. NHC ('newbie help channel') is a communications channel for newbies and newbie helpers, where hopefully someone will help you. You can recognize a helper on NHC by the yellow (H) behind their name. To see who is a helper, type 'who helper'. There is another communications channel, OOC, which means Out Of Character. You cannot use this until you are level 3, and it is not meant to discuss MUD stuff on, it is for real life/tv/jokes/anything else. To use it once you are level 3, type 'OOC '. Also, you can 'toggle ACH' to turn on the arena channel, or 'toggle AUCTION' to turn on the auction channel. To ask a god something, use 'petition '. They might not respond if they are busy or for whatever other reasons they may have. In addition to the standard communication means say, gsay, shout, whisper, ask and tell there is also mud mail. To list your messages, type 'mlist'. To send a message, type 'mwrite ' and +w on a new line to send it. To read a message, type 'mread '. Delete it with 'mdel '. Sometimes you will see message boards in rooms. These are a means to write and read notes on the game, sell equipment, etc. Type 'l board' to see the posts on it, and 'read board ' to read a certain post. Type 'write ' to post something, end the message with @@ on a new line. INFORMATION To get help on something, type 'help ' or just 'help'. Be aware that some helpfiles may be outdated, incomplete or just missing. *Type 'practice' or 'skills' to see your skills. *Type 'attributes' to show your character's attributes. *Type 'score' for other character information. EXPLORATION Before you enter an unfamiliar zone, ask around what zone it is and if it is safe you go in there. Type 'credits' and look up the zone's level range. There is no way to know the name of a new zone you find, but you can usually make a good guess. Another good thing to do is to add 10 levels to the high end limit, just to be safe. A level 10-30 zone just may contain level 40 mobs! Important! Do not map with your equipped character, roll a newbie to explore. Chances are you die to a level 55 aggro monster and cannot get your hard-earned equipment back. Scan before walking in zones! Scan shows you what is in the rooms around you. Beware, if it is dark and you do not have infra/ultravision, you won't see if something is actually there! Also, some mobs may be invisible or hidden, and just plain not show up at all. Don't walk around with too much money, it weighs you down a lot and may be stolen by mobs or you may die and be unable to retrieve it. Deposit it in the bank instead (see after combat). Sometimes while walking you will bump into a mob in a room with only two exits. This is a single file room, to get past the mob you have to type 'recline' and then the direction you were going in. Once you've done that, type 'stand'. Note that when you moved, you didn't leave the room - instead you have moved 'past' the mob. If there are 2 mobs in the room, you will have to move twice while reclined to get past them, etc. Take care when fighting in single file rooms as everyone behind you cannot help you assisting! Single file rooms usually contain 5ft in the width or length and have only two exits, so it is possible to spot them in advance by typing 'look '. There are also teleport rooms that create mazes, but these are pretty rare and only occur in higher level zones. EATING AND DRINKING (Note: Eating and Drinking are currently disabled.) If you took the fungus balls from the newbie zone, type 'eat ball' to eat one. You should also have a water-skin or something similar with you. Type 'inventory' and look for a skin, water-skin, canteen or something like that. Type 'drink '. You can also drink from fountains. Towns always have one or more fountains and these are safe to drink from. Don't drink from fountains in zones unless you know them, they may contain poison, although usually not fatal unless you are low level, so ask someone first! Type 'look in ' to see how full your drink container is. If it is almost empty, refill it! Go to a fountain and type 'pour out ' to empty it, and then 'fill ' to refill it. Alternatively, you can buy a full one in a store or ask a spellcaster to create a new one for you or fill an old one. Always have some food and water with you. If you are hungry and thirsty, eat and drink. You cannot memorize spells when hungry or thirsty! Also, you will regain hitpoints and moves much slower. The best food and drink are goodberries and (un)holy water. If you eat a goodberry using the full name ('eat goodberry'), you'll get a cure light cast on you. Blessing a drink container that has plain water in it will create holy or unholy water, depending on the alignment of the person blessing it. Whenever you drink (un)holy water, you can get a cure light or cause light spell cast on you, depending on if you're the same or opposite alignment as the drink. TRAINING AND SKILLS After you leave the newbie zone by typing 'recall' and 'enter toril', you will be in your guildmaster's room in your hometown. Type 'practice' to see all the skills you can learn and at what price. Checking 'help skill_' (note the underscore) will show you when you'll get new skills in the future. Until level 10 you can practice for free. You won't be able to practice any skills at your guildmaster for the first few levels because he'll only train you if you're below the average for your level, and even though your skills are bad to start out, they're still far above average for level 1. Type 'prac ' to practice a skill. E.g. 'prac 1h slash' to practice 1h slashing. You can do this a few times until you reach the maximum skill proficiency for your level. After level 10 you have to pay for practicing. The price depends on your level, your current skill proficiency and your charisma. For levels 1-20, practice whenever you gain a level! It will still be cheap and you NEED skills to be good at casting/fighting. Don't worry about skills like mount and swimming. They are not pivotal, and they will notch by themselves when you use them. After level 20 the prices start becoming heftier - only pay for skills which are hard to notch, unless you can spare the money. All skills will rise automatically with regular use. Always practice a new skill when you first attain it. They start out at 0 when you first get them.